Archives Of Russia Five Years After

To many people, Russia remains as enigmatic today as it was during the Iron Curtain era. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the country had an opportunity to face its tortured past. Here, Brent asks - why didn't this happen? To answer such a question, he draws on 15 years of unprecedented access to high level Soviet archives. He shows readers a Russia where, in 1992, women sold used toothbrushes on the street to survive, yet now the shops are filled with luxury goods. Brent encounters Stalin's spectre through these changes and takes readers deep inside his archives.

This is a comprehensive directory and bibliographic guide to Russian archives and manuscript repositories in the capital cities of Moscow and St. Petersburg. It is an essential resource for any researcher interested in Russian sources for topics in diplomatic, military, and church history; art; dance; film; literature; science; ethnolography; and geography. The first part lists general bibliographies of relevant reference literature, directories, bibliographic works, and specialized subject-related sources. In the following sections of the directory, archival listings are grouped in institutional categories. Coverage includes federal, ministerial, agency, presidential, local, university, Academy of Sciences, organizational, library, and museum holdings. Individual entries include the name of the repository (in Russian and English), basic information on location, staffing, institutional history, holdings, access, and finding aids. More comprehensive and up-to-date than the 1997 Russian Version, this edition includes Web-site information, dozens of additional repositories, several hundred more bibliographical entries, coverage of reorganization issues, four indexes, and a glossary.

In a timely re-examination of the origins of the system which fell apart so dramatically in 1991, this book deals with the policies of the Soviets towards the non-Russian nationalities of the former Russian Empire. Making extensive use of previously unavailable material from the Soviet archives, Jeremy Smith explores the attempts of the Bolsheviks to promote the development of minority nationalities in the Soviet context, through a combination of political, cultural and educational measures, and looks at the disputes surrounding the creation of the Soviet Union.

Moscow in the 1960s was the other side of the Iron Curtain: mysterious, exotic, even dangerous. In 1966 the historian Sheila Fitzpatrick travelled to Moscow to research in the Soviet archives. This was the era of Brezhnev, of a possible 'thaw' in the Cold War, when the Soviets couldn't decide either to thaw out properly or re-freeze. Moscow, the world capital of socialism, was renowned for its drabness. The buses were overcrowded; there were endemic shortages and endless queues. This was also the age of regular spying scandals and tit-for-tat diplomatic expulsions and it was no surprise that visiting students were subject to intense scrutiny by the KGB. Many of Fitzpatrick's friends were involved in espionage activities - and indeed others were accused of being spies or kept under close surveillance. In this book, Sheila Fitzpatrick provides a unique insight into everyday life in Soviet Moscow.